[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 12, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2335-S2338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                    TRIBUTE TO MAYOR RICHARD C. LEE

 Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to an 
outstanding public servant, and a wonderful friend, former New Haven 
Mayor Richard Lee, who passed away last week at the age of 86.
  My most heartfelt condolences go out to his wife, Ellen Griffin Lee, 
their three children, Sarah, Tara, and David, and the entire Lee 
family.
  I share the grief of so many from my state of Connecticut, and from 
around the country, who knew Dick Lee as the heart and soul of New 
Haven, and as a visionary leader who transformed urban politics 
nationwide.
  Mayor Lee will be best remembered as the man whose innovative urban 
renewal initiatives in the 1950's and 1960's engendered the rebirth of 
the city of New Haven. His pioneering efforts not only improved the 
lives of the people of Connecticut, they served as a model for city 
revitalization projects across America. Generations of Americans have 
benefitted from the keen mind and passionate public service of Dick 
Lee.
  Born and raised in the working-class Newhallville section of New 
Haven, Dick Lee never went to college. Nonetheless, he moved swiftly 
through the ranks of New Haven city government. In 1954, at the age of 
37, he became the youngest mayor in New Haven's 365-year history. 
Despite his youth and lack of formal education, Dick Lee quickly became 
nationally known as one of the most savvy and sophisticated politicians 
of his time. He is now remembered as one of the most effective mayors 
in American history.
  Under Mayor Lee's stewardship, New Haven became the recipient of more 
Federal aid per capita than any other city in the country. He used this 
influx of Federal resources to create a national blueprint for 
America's war on poverty, and to showcase innovative urban renewal 
initiatives, which were desperately needed in hundreds of cities 
nationwide.
  In the early 1960s, Dick Lee launched Head Start, and dozens of equal 
opportunity and anti-poverty programs in New Haven, long before other 
cities across America began thinking of ways to combat urban blight and 
improve the lives of inner-city residents.
  John Lindsay, Mayor of New York City, who called Dick Lee the ``dean 
of mayors in this country,'' once said, ``Sometimes my biggest problem 
is to develop something in New York that Dick Lee hasn't thought of 
first.
  None of us will ever lose sight of that side of Dick Lee--the 
tireless visionary, extraordinarily effective leader, and dedicated 
public servant. But many of us also had the great good fortune to call 
Dick Lee a personal friend. And he was truly a wonderful friend. My 
father Thomas Dodd, myself, and the entire Dodd family have known the 
Lee family for generations. We will always treasure our many memories.
  Mr. President, Dick Lee could have done many things with his life--he 
could have run for governor of Connecticut; he could have run for 
Congress; he could have taken a Cabinet position.
  He chose to stay home--he chose to stay in New Haven. That's because 
Dick Lee embraced his city of new Haven as a beloved family member whom 
he could never leave. I speak for many when I say it is nearly 
impossible to imagine the Elm City without Dick Lee.
  Dick Lee ultimately served 16 years as mayor of New Haven, 1954 
through 1970, making him the longest serving mayor in the city's 
history. Through those years, he never lost sight of his

[[Page S2336]]

working-class roots; even after emerging as a towering figure in urban 
politics, he continued to live for many years in his home neighborhood 
of Newhallville. And he never lost sight of what he believed to be his 
calling in politics: improving the lives of others. His greatest 
passion was always reserved for helping the most underprivileged among 
us.
  Dick Lee was often credited with turning new Haven into a ``model 
city.'' He would never accept that term. He once said, ``I resent the 
term `model city' . . . We're not a `model city' if there is a single 
man who is unemployed, if there is a single slum home.''
  It has been said that the purpose of politics is to generate hope. 
Dick Lee followed that credo every day, and millions have so 
benefitted.
  There weren't many leaders like Dick Lee back in the 1950's and 
1960's, and there aren't many today. He helped improve the lives of so 
many people and will be greatly missed by so many more.
  I would like to submit for the Record an extraordinary tribute to 
Mayor Lee, written by Mark Zaretszky in the New Haven Register, dated 
February 3, 2003.
  The tribute follows.

             Former Mayor Richard C. Lee Remembered Fondly

       New Haven.--Former Mayor Richard C. Lee, the longest-
     serving chief executive in the city's 365-year-history, will 
     be remembered by the city he loved as the man who remade New 
     Haven and, until his own health faltered, never missed a 
     wake.
       Lee--friend and adviser to presidents, pioneer of the urban 
     renewal era, outspoken early critic of the Vietnam War and 
     proud Irish American--died Sunday morning after a long bout 
     with heart disease and diabetes. He was 86.
       Lee, New Haven's 44th mayor, served a record eight terms 
     from 1954 to 1969. He is survived by his wife, Ellen Griffin 
     Lee, his children Sarah ``Sally'' A. Lee, David Lee and Tara 
     Lee Croke and their families, including grandchildren Stacy, 
     Lindsey and Elliott Lee.
       ``My youth has fled, but it was a really good life,'' Lee 
     said a week before his death as he lay in bed Jan. 26 at the 
     Whitney Center in Hamden surrounded by family and close 
     friends. ``The memories never disappear . . . No one can take 
     them away from me.''
       Mayor Lee had a particularly good day the previous 
     Saturday, according to Ellen Lee, spinning stories and 
     laughing with family and other friends for hours and staying 
     up until 10 p.m.
       For part of the day last Sunday he wore a Boston Red Sox 
     cap given to him by the late ``Smokey Joe'' Wood, the New 
     Haven-born star pitcher who was his favorite Red Sox player 
     and Lee's neighbor for many years.


                            a passionate man

       ``Dick was a passionate man,'' said Mayor John DeStefano 
     Jr., who visited him several times during his last days. ``He 
     governed passionately, his likes and his dislikes were 
     passionate and I think what animated his personality was his 
     ability to feel emotion.''
       DeStefano, the city's 49th mayor, said Lee, who had been an 
     adviser and confidante in DeStefano's nine years as mayor, 
     frequently called him at night to talk about the city's 
     goings-on, give advice when needed and pump him for gossip.
       ``It's a series of late-night phone calls I'll miss,'' 
     DeStefano said.
       What came through even in DeStefano's last visit to Lee 
     ``was this positive attitude,'' he said. ``He was like some 
     Runyonesque character who was a real bookmark of a time and a 
     place in the city.''
       ``Every day I go to work and I sit at his desk--the very 
     desk that Dick Lee sat at--and I feel blessed . . . ,'' 
     DeStefano said.
       ``He wasn't perfect. He failed at some things like all of 
     us do. but you don't fail unless you're trying--and Dick was 
     always trying. New Haven is just a blessed place for his 
     service,'' DeStefano said.


                             youngest mayor

       Mayor Lee, who took office on New Year's Day 1954 as the 
     youngest mayor in the city's history, recast New Haven in 
     broad strokes in the 1950s and 1960s--for better and, in the 
     minds of some New Haveners, for worse.
       Lee, a World War II Army veteran, defeated Republican 
     incumbent Mayor William Celentano in 1953 to begin a half-
     century unbroken chain of Democratic rule in New Haven that 
     continues to this day.
       He brought in the best planners and social service 
     professionals of the time, listened to what they came up 
     with, dreamed big and made New Haven a ``model city'' watched 
     across the nation.
       And while some of the huge changes he brought to the city 
     have not stood the test of time, he was respected--and, more 
     often than not, genuinely liked--even by his critics.
       Some have called him the most significant New Haven mayor 
     since its first, Roger Sherman.
       ``Dick Lee was a tireless visionary, a wonderful friend, 
     and one of the greatest mayors in American history,'' said 
     Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn. ``He loved New Haven and 
     made it a much better city than it would have been without 
     him.''
       Lee ``was a mentor and inspiration to me in the early years 
     of my career, and I learned from him that politics means 
     having a vision, building coalitions to get things done, and 
     remembering to enjoy yourself in the process.''
       Lieberman, whose house in New Haven for years was just two 
     or three blocks from Lee's, was the 2000 Democratic vice 
     presidential nominee. He is now a candidate for president in 
     2004.
       ``I'll never forget our first meeting, when in my capacity 
     as Yale Daily News editor, I interviewed him at the Jewish 
     Center health club, and quickly ended up riding around town 
     with him to see the fruits of his successful urban renewal 
     campaign,'' Lieberman said.
       ``That was the beginning of a lifelong friendship, and I 
     will miss him tremendously,'' he said.
       ``Dick Lee is a legend in urban America,'' said U.S. Sen. 
     Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. on the occasion of Mayor Lee's 
     last big testimonial dinner in 1998. The senator has known 
     Lee since John F. Kennedy was president and Robert F. Kennedy 
     as attorney general.
       During the 1960 presidential campaign, Lee was one of the 
     first U.S. mayors to declare his support for JFK, and was a 
     friend of the Kennedy family for years.
       ``He's one of the all-time great American mayors, and his 
     eloquent leadership in tackling the challenge of our cities 
     became an inspiration to Congress and the country,'' Kennedy 
     said.


                           newhallville roots

       Lee grew up on Shelton Avenue in the city's working class 
     Newhallville section at a time when it was lit by gaslights, 
     and he continued to live there for several years after he 
     became mayor.
       He later moved to McKinley Avenue in the Westville section 
     and stayed there until 2000, when his health forced him to 
     sell his Tudor house and move with his wife to an assisted 
     living apartment complex at Whitney Center.
       Lee was a beloved figure to many New Haven, even to some of 
     those who berated him for knocking down their neighborhoods.
       By the time Lee became mayor, he had been an alderman and 
     had worked as a reporter for the Journal-Courier, the morning 
     paper owned by the Jackson family that also ran the New Haven 
     Register; for the Chamber of Commerce and as director of the 
     Yale News Bureau.
       While Lee never went to college, he was always proud of the 
     fact that Yale University in 1961 gave him an honorary 
     master's degree. He was the first American mayor since New 
     York's Fiorello LaGuardia to receive one and the first New 
     Haven mayor since 1842 to be so honored.
       In later years he was one of the Proprietors of the Green 
     and a trustee at Albertus Magnus College. He also worked for 
     the United Way, served as vice president and assistant to the 
     chairman of Union Trust bank and had affiliations with the 
     University of Connecticut and Quinnipiac University.
       Julia M. McNamara, the president of Albertus, said Lee's 
     affiliation with the college begun October 1925 when he was 
     one of two altar boys at the opening ceremony of the 
     Dominican facility. He was a trustee at Albertus for 17 years 
     and was trustee emeritus at the time of his death.
       ``He brought with him all his wonderful experience and 
     background and a tremendous spirit of faith. He was a man of 
     great integrity who really, for us, was an inspiration,'' 
     said McNamara, who became a close personal friend of Lee.
       Longtime friend and New Haven Register Editor Emeritus 
     Robert J. Leeney said Lee was totally dedicated to New Haven.
       ``After a long life of achievement, the significant fact 
     about Dick Lee has been his lasting focus on the New Haven 
     community into which he was born,'' said Leeney, who directed 
     the newspaper's coverage for much of the time Lee was in 
     office. ``His affection and concern for hometown people and 
     places never waned despite his political sophistication and 
     his administrative skills.''
       Throughout his career, ``he never worked more than a block 
     or two from the central Green . . .'' Leeney said. ``The 
     rhythm of this city was the rhythm of his life . . . His 
     constant public service and warm personality have made Dick 
     Lee's civic legacy a model of past energy and of future 
     inspiration for the city he loved.''
       Lee's wake will take place Tuesday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 
     Sisk Brothers Funeral Home, 3105 Whitney Ave. in Hamden. A 
     Mass of Christian burial will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m. 
     Wednesday in St. Mary's Church on Hillhouse Avenue.


                            a new blueprint

       Under Mayor Lee, New Haven became a blueprint upon which 
     much of the national war on poverty was modeled.
       Lee's New Haven was the recipient of more federal money per 
     capita than any other city in the country during the 
     presidencies of JFK and Lyndon B. Johnson, when a total of 
     $180 million was sent to Elm City.
       It was in Dick Lee's New Haven that Head Start, legal 
     assistance and various equal opportunity and anti-poverty 
     were born, beginning was back in 1962, before the rest of the 
     nation knew what those things were.
       New Haven was one of six cities to initiate ``human 
     renewal'' programs using Ford

[[Page S2337]]

     Foundation grants that fostered programs that were precursors 
     to the national ``Model Cities'' legislation.
       Lee and his administration, led early on by Development 
     Administrator Edward Logue, also were responsible for huge 
     chunks of the city's modern landscape: the Chapel Square 
     Mall, the Coliseum and the Knights of Columbus building, 
     Dixwell Plaza and the Dixwell Community ``Q'' House, schools, 
     fire houses, a revived Wooster Square and the Long Wharf 
     commercial strip.
       But ``I think to focus on the urban renewal projects would 
     be to miss the point of Dick Lee's time as mayor,'' said 
     DeStefano. ``His terms in office spanned a period of time in 
     which the character of America changed.''
       ``With the suburbanization of America in the 50s and the 
     dramatic social change of the 60s . . . the war, civil rights 
     and the disturbances . . . in the city . . . I think the 
     measure of his mayoralty (was) that Dick Lee kept the city 
     together,'' he said. ``Together in terms of sharing a 
     direction, sharing a vision, creating hope, and from that 
     hope, helping people lead complete lives.''
       As a new mayor, Lee assembled New Haven's first 
     ``professional'' government. He listened to the talented 
     people he hired and made New Haven one of the ``model 
     cities'' of the time.
       Then, as Lee's time in the mayor's office approached its 
     end amid the tumultuous events of the 1960s, he saw the 
     city's image tarnished when racial unrest erupted in 1967, 
     something that took him by surprise.
       As viewed today, Lee's eight terms in office, spanning 16 
     years from 1954 to 1969, were punctuated by such ironies. 
     They also long ago were inscribed in 20th century political 
     science and urban planning textbooks.
       Douglas Rae, a professor of political science at Yale, who 
     has just finished a book critical of some of Lee's legacy, 
     offered no such criticism of Lee the man.
       ``He is New Haven's finest political creation of the 20th 
     century--a man whose vision and humanity tower above other 
     mayors and other public figures in that long period,'' Rae 
     said. ``The guy was absolutely remarkable.''


                             HUMAN RENEWAL

       ``He was a great mayor,'' said former state Treasurer Henry 
     E. ``Hank'' Parker, who came to New Haven from Poughkeepsie, 
     N.Y. in 1957 to be program director for Winchester Community 
     School as part one of Lee's ``human renewal'' programs.
       ``He opened the door to a city that needed the urban 
     renewal that he indeed pioneered,'' said Parker, who became 
     the first president of the New Haven Black Coalition in 1968 
     and ran for mayor himself in 1969, the year Lee bowed out. 
     ``Without that, we would have been even further behind.''
       Parker made history of his own when he became Connecticut's 
     first black state treasurer in 1974.
       What made Lee great?
       Parker said Lee managed the tumultuous changes New Haven 
     and all cities were going through in that era ``better than 
     anyone else of this time.'' He used his Community Progress 
     Inc. and other programs to blend together urban and human 
     renewal ``like nobody else,'' Parker said.
       Lee ``was meticulous about government,'' Parker said. ``He 
     was willing to bring people into the administration who were 
     smarter than he was'' and listened to what they said.
       ``It wasn't the buildings'' that made Lee significant, said 
     DeStefano. ``It was the people.''
       When Lee started as mayor, ``the African American 
     population was increasing but there was bad housing and old 
     schools. There was discrimination,'' said former Mayor John 
     C. Daniels, who met Lee as a high school student and was 
     later introduced to politics when Lee appointed him to fill a 
     vacancy on the Board of Aldermen.
       ``He was in the forefront of changing that,'' said Daniels 
     who served as mayor for two terms from 1990 to 1994 and was 
     the first, and still the only, African American to hold the 
     office.


                           BRING IN THE BEST

       Lee made it acceptable for mayors to reach outside of the 
     city to bring in talented people, said former two-term mayor 
     Frank Logue, younger brother of the late Edward Logue, who 
     was Lee's right-hand man before moving on to help remake 
     Boston and New York City.
       ``He put together energetic and creative people to be the 
     key people in city government,'' Logue said. ``As far as I 
     know, he was the first guy to do that in a serious way . . 
     .''
       One of the significant things about Lee is the extent to 
     which even his critics respected him.
       ``He's really one of New Haven's heroic figures,'' said 
     Vincent J. Scully Jr., Sterling professor emeritus in art 
     history at Yale University.
       Scully was one of the people who successfully opposed Lee-
     era redevelopment plans that would have knocked down the post 
     office and federal court building that now bears Lee's name, 
     the New Haven Free Public Library and Union Station.
       But Lee ``was a dedicated man,'' Scully said. ``He really 
     has to be regarded as New Haven's greatest mayor.''
       Lee sought advice from the experts of that time and ``got 
     the best advice he could,'' said Scully, a New Haven native. 
     ``I though a lot of it was very much a mistake . . . but that 
     wasn't Lee's fault . . . He did what the experts told him to 
     do . . .
       Scully said the reaction to urban renewal spawned a new era 
     for urban planners, led here by former New Haven Preservation 
     Trust director Margaret ``Peggy'' Flynn.
       ``New Haven became the heart and soul of the New 
     Preservation movement,'' he said.
       To many people, Lee was the guy who saved New Haven. To 
     others however, including many of those who lived along Oak 
     Street and Legion avenue, neighborhoods he bulldozed for the 
     never-completed Route 34 connector, he was a pariah.
       But, according to one of his former top staffers, former 
     Redevelopment Agency head Harold Grabino, ``the `wrecked New 
     Haven` stuff is a lot of crap.''
       ``It's unfortunate that it didn't hold,'' Grabino, now a 
     New York City developer, said of Lee's bold effort to rebuild 
     New Haven. ``But without the attempt that was made, New 
     Haven would have been in far worse shape than it was, a 
     lot earlier.''
       Grabino remembers Lee as ``very much a person-to-person 
     politician'' who worked masterfully to try to satisfy New 
     Haven's diverse population and varying ethnic groups.
       He also remembers him as a man who, after one particularly 
     grueling day trip to Washington, D.C. to testify before 
     Congress, insisted upon stopping at three wakes on the way 
     home from LaGuardia Airport.
       Joel Cogen, legal counsel for the Redevelopment Agency 
     under Lee, said Lee really did believe in working with people 
     in the neighborhoods. ``It was an incipient thing at that 
     time.'' He said the mayor was further hamstrung by the kind 
     of federal money available, which favored demolition over 
     renewal.


                           outlived legacies

       One of the ironies of Lee's life is how--despite 
     infirmities that had doctors and his family worrying about 
     his health decades before he died--he managed to outlive many 
     of his legacies.
       Those included his grandest, most symbolic and most 
     celebrated project, which cleared three downtown blocks--
     angering dozens of business owners whose properties he 
     acquired--to make room for Macy's, Malley's, the Chapel 
     Square mall and what is now the Omni Hotel.
       Since then, the Malley's building was leveled, Macy's 
     closed and most of the merchants in the mall have been sent 
     packing, although a new developer is on the scene with 
     promises of upscale stores.
       The three-block project was the largest physical component 
     of Lee's urban renewal programs and many critics have viewed 
     its decline as evidence of failure. Others, including 
     DeStefano and some of Lee's former staffers, say the 
     development served its purpose and now must be redone.
       Lee came to terms years ago with the fact that even some of 
     his grandest plans had faded.
       ``Well, we still have the hotel,'' he laughed, throwing up 
     his arms in a shrug when asked about the state of downtown in 
     1998.
       Lee even managed to outlive some of the huge public works 
     projects intended to be his memorials: the Richard C. Lee 
     High School closed in 1986; the Oak Street/Route 34 
     connector, which later was named for him, was never finished.
       He joked privately at the 1994 dedication of the four block 
     connector as the ``Richard C. Lee Highway'' that it was one 
     of his greatest disappointments. ``Let's just say it's an 
     awfully short highway,'' he said.
       Finally, in 1998 the federal government renamed the federal 
     courthouse on Church Street after him--a memorial that is 
     likely to remain standing for some time.
       Appropriately, it was a building he once sought to knock 
     down.
       Lee recognized the contradictions of his legacy long ago 
     and commented on it in a speech he delivered in 1980 when the 
     U.S. Conference of Mayors gave him a public service award.
       ``For every failure we recorded, we had more than our share 
     of successes,'' Lee said, referring to his entire generation 
     of mayors, ``and, by God, I'm proud of that era.
       ``We would dream, and we did; we would try, and we did,'' 
     he said. ``When we failed, we failed magnificently, and, when 
     we succeeded, we succeeded sometime beyond our fondest 
     expectations, and, after all, what's wrong with a record like 
     that?''
       He also recognized that even monumental plans have a 
     limited shelf life.
       ``You know, we were swimming against the tide,'' Lee said, 
     referring to the social and economic forces, led by the 
     federal highway system, that literally took people and 
     commerce out to the suburbs in the second half of the last 
     century.


                              a local guy

       While Lee loved New Haven and chose not to move on to 
     higher office, his fame was not just a local phenomenon.
       ``There were times when Dick Lee could have run for 
     governor. He could have run for senator. He probably could 
     even have taken a Cabinet position,'' said Daniels.
       But ``Dick loved being mayor of New Haven,'' said 
     DeStefano. ``It meant the world to him. Except for Ellen and 
     his family, nothing meant more.''
       Recognition of Lee's dedication, innovation and 
     leadership--and his role as an urban groundbreaker--cut 
     cleanly across ideological lines and emanated far beyond New 
     Haven.
       In 1967, John Lindsay, the Republican mayor of America's 
     largest city, called Lee ``the dean of mayors in this 
     country'' and

[[Page S2338]]

     said, ``Sometimes, my biggest problem is to develop something 
     in New York that Dick Lee hasn't thought of first.''
       Conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. once kidded that 
     Lee, a liberal Democrat, ``is excellently equipped to act as 
     a mayor, particularly of impoverished cities which desire to 
     mulct (extract) from the federal government funds to reify 
     (make concrete) Mr. Lee's municipal visions.''
       A few days after Lee finally let go of City Hall in 1969, 
     the New York Times in an editorial called him ``one of the 
     pioneers of urban renewal'' and declared, ``a significant 
     chapter in American urban history was concluded.''
       While New Haven won widespread fame as one of the ``model 
     cities'' of that era, Lee himself rejected that notion.
       ``I resent the term `model city,' '' he told the New York 
     Post in August 1967, one week after five days of race riots 
     erupted. ``I have avoided it. I've hated it. We're not a 
     model city if there is a single man who is unemployed, if 
     there is a single slum home.''
       He told Time magazine soon afterward: ``If New Haven is a 
     model city, then God help urban America.''

                          ____________________